Spending time with Benji seemed to take up my days, and being ignored by Cy took up my nights. We would sit across from each other, barely speaking, barely making eye contact. I’d tried asking questions I didn’t need the answers to. I’d even tried bringing up the fact that he’d shown up at my door weeks before in the early morning hours to check up on me, figuring that would get him talking. But every time, he would find some way to answer in one or two words or say he was too busy to talk.
I pretended not to notice, but I wanted to punch him for pulling me into that amazing hug as if he gave a shit and then spending nearly a month making me feel as if I were invisible. I wanted to punch myself for caring, for allowing someone to make me feel that way in the first place.
Halloween night, while everyone was dressing up and attending parties, Cy and I were in the basement, punching numbers. The Fitz was one of the oldest buildings on campus, and it struggled to keep itself comfortably heated in the winter and cooled in the summer. The basement was particularly miserable and felt like an icebox on very cold nights.
I sipped my water and then put it down before pulling the sleeves of my sweater further over my hands.
Cy cleared his throat, and for the first time in weeks, he spoke to me first, “I can talk to Dr. Zorba about a space heater.”
“He’ll never go for it,” I said, wiping my lips with the cuff of my sweater. “He wouldn’t risk a fire or a significant temperature change affecting the specimen.”
“It won’t affect the specimen. It came from space.”
“Exactly. Where it’s cold.”
“Who says the planet it originated from wasn’t able to retain higher temperatures?”
“Like Venus?”
“Exactly like Venus. I mean…I’m sure that it’s possible. I’ll look into a space heater.”
I watched him expectantly.
“What?”
“No Uranus jokes? I’m disappointed.”
“What do you mean?”
I chuckled. “Never mind.” My fingers began clicking against the keyboard again, and from the corner of my eye, I was sure that I caught Cy staring at me. I glanced over at him. “What?”
“You’re much more attractive when you smile, and your laugh is lovely.”
“Uh…thank you.”
“You’re—”
“I’m welcome. It’s okay. I say thank you to you a lot, apparently.”
“I just want you to…I don’t know what I want.”
He stared at me for a few moments more and then continued with his work. My face caught fire as the blood pooled under my cheeks. My fingers wouldn’t work after that, and I couldn’t concentrate on the numbers.
Cy stood up and left the room without a word. Right about the time I decided to get up and look for him, he returned, setting a Butterfinger on my desk.
“Trick or treat, right?” he said.
“Is that a Halloween joke? I mean, that’s cool. I just didn’t know you had a sense of humor.”
“I’m surprised you’re here. There are costume parties all over campus.”
I shook my head. “I don’t really do parties. Just once in a while when I’m bored out of my mind, but I avoid Halloween parties at all costs.”
“Why is that?”
“Fake blood. Dead people. Slutty costumes. None of it screams fun to me.”
Cy grinned. “I suppose not. We still have an hour or so of work to do. Would you mind if I walk you home when we’re finished?”
“Why?”
My response took Cy off guard.
He blinked a few times and then cleared his throat. “I think that maybe my insistence not to form attachments here was incorrect. We spend a lot of time together in this lab, and I’d like to get to know you better. As much as one can in the time I have left.”
“You’re going back home?”
He nodded.
“When?”
“Soon.”
“So, that’s why you’ve been ignoring me? Because you know you’re leaving?”
He hesitated. “In part, yes.”
“What’s the other part?”
He squirmed in his chair. “You…intrigue me.”
I wanted to high-five myself. The few times we’d interacted before I thought he was being nice in spite of feeling an extreme loathing toward me. Instead, it was the opposite. To Cy, I was intriguing.
I shrugged, trying to pretend I wasn’t irrationally pleased. “If you want.”
He smiled and then continued with his work. Despite the difficulty I had focusing, I forced myself to get through the pages of data on my desk. My mind kept wandering off, questioning why I felt so drawn to him. Cy wasn’t my type. He was leaving. His lack of concert tees told me that we likely had nothing in common. But even then, I had a strong feeling that there was a reason life had thrown us together.
An hour later, I put the last sheet in the bin and turned to Cy. “Need any help?” I asked.
“No, I was just working on a few things for tomorrow while you finished up.”
“Show-off,” I said, grabbing my bag.
Cy and I walked out of the building, toward my dormitory.
“Would you like my coat?” Cy asked.
I shook my head.
“So,” Cy said, shoving his hands into his pockets, “what is your major, Rory?”
“I’m considering Bio Med. I have a thing for Astrobiology though, and Dr. Z and my father…” I began, but got lost in the thought.
“Were astrobiologists? Nothing wrong with having similar interests as a parent. It’s quite honorable where I’m from.”
“It just feels as though I’m repeating something that shouldn’t be repeated.” I shook my head. “It’s hard to explain.”
“No, I get it.”
“No, you don’t,” I said. It wasn’t the right thing to say or even remotely polite, but I became weirdly defensive when it came to my pain and memories. No one got anything about me, not even Dr. Z, and they didn’t get to say they did. If they understood or related to me, it meant I had to share something that belonged only to me.
When Dr. Z, my counselors, or my social worker tried to offer understanding, I let them know they weren’t within a thousand light-years of my truth. Pretending was a waste of everyone’s time, and I had endured hell to keep mine. It felt wrong to waste it.
“You’re right. That was inconsiderate of me. I’m sorry.”
“What’s your major?” I asked, trying to pretend I didn’t just make our little nature walk completely awkward.
“Interplanetary Culture.”
I laughed once. “I’m pretty sure Kempton doesn’t offer that.”
“I chose Kempton for my semester abroad. It’s part of my curriculum at home.”
A group of students dressed like various characters of The Wizard of Oz jogged by. Dorothy, of course, had hairy legs and a goatee.
Cy smiled, and we continued. “Your culture is definitely one of my favorites.”
“You don’t celebrate Halloween?”
“No, but if you mean dressing up and begging for candy, then technically, neither do you.”
“Touché.”
“Did that really just happen? I won an argument?” he asked, grinning.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Did you just gloat?”
“I guess I did.”
“Feel better?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“Good. I would say that’s out of character for you, but you seem like the gloating type. You’re kind of a show-off in general.”
Cy seemed offended. “I most certainly do not show off. I am quite focused on remaining in the background.”
“No. You’re definitely a show-off. All those off-the-wall questions you ask in Dr. Z’s class? Show-off.”
“I suppose gaining information is not what university is about then?”
“You ask questions a certain way, as if you already know the answers.”
“That doesn’t even make sense, Rory, and it’s actually quite rude.”
“I’m not insulting you. I’m describing you.”
Cy frowned. “That isn’t a very nice way of describing someone.”
“I also think you’re a little bit…somewhat attractive, and your eyes are incredible. There, that should heal the bruise on your ego.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
I shrugged.
“You think I’m attractive?” he asked.
“Now, you’re fishing for compliments. Showing off and now this? Now I know you’re a narcissist.”
“What?” Cy said, his voice rising an octave.
I burst into laughter, bending over and clutching my stomach. When I finally stood, I lilted a sigh. “Wow. I needed that.”
“To insult me?”
“No, to laugh. I was fucking with you, Cy.”
His eyes widened.
“I was joking, messing with you, just kidding?”
He nodded, seeming nervous. “Oh.”
I shook my head and patted him on the arm, looking up at the four floors of windows on my dormitory. Most of them were dark. “This is me. Thanks for walking me home and for asking this time.”
He ignored my mention of him showing up at my door.
“You’re never going to explain that, are you?” I asked.
“I don’t think I need to.”
“So, my hypothesis that you followed me after I left the lab is correct?”
Cy didn’t answer.
“Why?”
“I’ve already told you. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all, and for some reason, I needed to see you.”
“Why?”
“Why must you ask so many questions, Rory?”
“Weren’t you just defending the right to learn while in college?”
Cy lowered his eyes and took a breath. “And just like college, some things we must wait to learn.”
“But we learn them.”
He managed a small smile and then fidgeted for a bit before reaching for me. He pulled me against him, and my entire body stiffened.
He held his warm cheek against mine and whispered in my ear, “No one knows everything.”
He let me go and walked away quickly, his hands in his pockets.
The next day in class, Benji sat next to me and immediately began filling me in on everything that had happened since I saw him last. I opened my laptop, ignoring him for the most part and thinking about the night before. It was nice to walk with Cy and to talk about classes and my major instead of the rock. I thought about how soft and warm his skin was against my cheek and how good he smelled.
Benji prattled on, oblivious to the fact that I was clearly preoccupied, and then Cy walked in. He did something he’d never done before. He looked up at me. Before I did anything stupid, like wave, Cy’s eyes drifted to Benji, and Cy’s entire face tightened. Benji noticed, too, and they traded strained glances.
Benji leaned into my ear. “Is it just me, or did he give me a look?”
“It’s just you.”
Cy continued to his desk, and Benji continued with his story about the value of good study habits and his clear superiority over integers.
“Hey…” Benji said, stopping mid-sentence.
“Huh?”
“I can’t help but wonder if that was a glint of jealousy in Cy’s eyes or just curiosity.”
“Neither. You’re imagining things.”
Dr. Z greeted the class and began his lecture.
Before I could even type the date, Benji leaned in again, his brown eyes lit with mischief. “You don’t think I could make Cy jealous? That hurts.”
“What is your deal today?”
His playful expression faded. “I saw him walking you home this morning. Are you guys…”
“That was at two o’clock. Why were you hanging around my dorm at two in the morning?”
Benji puffed out a laugh. “I wasn’t hanging around your dorm. I was running.”
“At two?”
He shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep. Are you avoiding the question?”
“No. We’re not doing whatever it is you think we’re doing. And shh…I’m trying to learn.”
“It’s okay, you know, if you like him. You don’t have to worry about me.”
My eyes met Benji’s. He looked wounded. “I never asked you to like me.”
He shook his head. “No, I know. I just…I will always be your friend. It doesn’t matter if you reciprocate those feelings or not. I don’t need you to love me to love you.”
I pulled my mouth to one side in an awkward half-smile and then faced forward. He loves me? Since when?
Our relationship had been strictly platonic since freshman orientation. At least, that was what I thought. I didn’t know how to feel about that, much less respond.
“Really?” I hissed. “This is how you tell me? Are you serious right now?”
“Sorry, Rory, I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay,” I whispered, waving him away. “We don’t have to talk about it now.”
“Fair enough,” he said, his shoulders sagging.
The rest of class, I felt nauseous and panicky, flattered and sympathetic.
“Are we café-ing it today?” he asked.
I just shook my head a few quick times and intentionally didn’t look over to see his reaction. Benji feeling hurt was beginning to affect me in ways I didn’t like or appreciate. I wanted us to go back to being friends, as we were before, but it was becoming clear that we couldn’t. I never asked him to be my friend in the first place or to like me or love me or however he felt about me. Why should I have to take on this guilt when I tried to keep a respectable distance from the beginning? It wasn’t my fault. He was the one who was dishonest. It ruined everything, and now, Cy was finally coming around.
I could feel Benji’s disappointment radiating from his perfectly ironed peach oxford. What self-respecting guy wears peach—even if the color does look amazing with his skin and eyes—or feathers his hair since 1991, for that matter? I fought the guilt with anger, and for the time being, it was working.
Class dismissed, and I took my things and darted past Benji, not even saying good-bye. I wasn’t sure if he tried. I refused to look.
Since eating lunch at the café was out and the college cafeterias were always too full of obnoxious people during that time of day, I opted to head down to the Fitz and get a few samples lined up and ready for Cy that evening. I was hoping that thought would lead my mind to think more about Cy, but I couldn’t get Benji’s defeated expression out of my head.
My mind was made up: interaction with Benji would have to be limited. We’d gotten too close, even after the Ellie ridiculousness. He was sneaky, and I was stupid. I should never have kissed him. I knew how he felt about me.
I could feel my entire face compressing into a tight, troubled frown, but both my emotions and my face unraveled when I saw Cy at his desk, already lining up samples.
“Hello, Rory. Surprised to see you here during the day.”
“I was going to say that exact same thing to you.” I walked over to his desk where he had petri dishes and small square stickers marked with consecutive numbers.
“I guess you don’t need me at all,” I teased.
“Oh, I need you. Make no mistake about that.”
I was standing a bit behind him, so I watched, hoping he would turn around and wink or smile or somehow indicate that what he said meant more.
Nothing. Fine, I’ll help. “What do you mean?”
Cy raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, what do I mean?”
“You need me to help you with this?” I said, nodding to the desk.
“Of course.”
I nodded. “Good to know. Just wanted to be clear that you didn’t mean something else.”
Cy fidgeted a bit and then pulled off his black-rimmed glasses, placing them carefully on his desk. “I’m finished for now. I can walk you to your next class.”
“What is your fascination with walking me places?”
“It’s customary, isn’t it?”
“Not since 1920.”
Cy grinned. “Just let me walk you. You don’t have to be a…hard-ass all the time.”
“Oh! Listen to you swearing like a real college student!”
His grin broke into a broad smile. “Really?”
“No. C’mon. I’ll walk you.”
We kept a slow pace. Even though the thick cloud cover brought in another brutal cold front, neither of us seemed to notice. We talked about my classes and how out of control Dr. Zorba’s beard had become. We laughed a lot, and it was nice to just talk about nothing. We stopped at a food cart, and Cy watched in awe as I ordered a falafel.
“What?” I asked, eating and walking at the same time.
“It’s just an odd dish.”
“The falafel?”
“Yes, the croquettes in pita bread. Very strange.”
“You’ve never heard of a falafel?”
He shook his head.
“It’s a Middle Eastern dish,” I said, confused by his confusion.
“Just because it’s Middle Eastern doesn’t mean I must have heard of it. Are you familiar with all Canadian dishes because Canada is also located in North America?”
“Okay, okay, you win.”
“I what? Can you say that a bit louder?”
When we stopped in front of my class, I smirked at his teasing. “Very funny.”
“I’m finished with classes for the day,” he said, smiling. “I’ll see you tonight.”
“You’re not coming to lab?” I asked.
“I have an appointment.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to walk me to my next class? And then back to my dorm after that? I’m giving myself a haircut. You can help me with that, too,” I teased.
“I can if you wish,” he said, his voice steady.
I wasn’t expecting him to say yes. “It’s kind of ritualistic. I should probably just be alone.”
“You don’t have to be. I can be there with you.”
“I’ll see you tonight,” I said with an appreciative smile.
Cy walked backward a few steps and then turned to walk away. I stepped into lab to see Benji sitting next to my empty seat with a forced grin and sad eyes.
“You missed out. It was potato soup day at the café.”
“I had to set up some samples to save time tonight.”
He leaned down to help me plug in my laptop and then pulled out his own. “I can help you in the lab, you know.”
“No, you really can’t.”
“I just feel as if it’s taking up all of my Rory time. Kind of sucks.”
Rory time? “You kind of suck.”
Benji chuckled and shook his head, booting up his computer. “I only take that from you, just so you know.”
“And I appreciate it.”
Is what I am feeling a…good mood? Do I even remember what that feels like? Whatever it was, it was completely fine with me if it stuck around a while. But then it occurred to me that I hadn’t thought about my family all morning, and my good mood immediately dissipated. It felt like a betrayal, disrespectful to go a day without thinking about them. They deserved better from me.
For the remainder of class, I studied microbes, recorded their molecular signals, and felt sorry. Sorry that I didn’t save my parents or my best friend. Sorry that I lived and they didn’t. And I promised myself that I would never forget about them again.
Benji tried to smile at me a few times, but I ignored him. He got the hint fairly quickly, and I thought it made him feel better that I was behaving like my usual self.
After class, I packed up my things and trudged outside. The sky had been gray for two days, but now huge snowflakes were falling. I pulled at my sweater sleeves, covering my fists with the wool to try to ward off the cold.
I looked down at the bottom of the steps, and there stood Cy. An involuntary smile touched my lips.
“What are you doing here?” I said, descending the ten or so steps down to him.
“I decided to take you up on your invitation to walk you to your next class.”
Without thinking, I threw my arms around him. Cy wasn’t fazed. He pulled me more tightly against him, crossing his arms across my back and pressing his chin gently into my shoulder. I buried my face into his neck. He smelled so good. I couldn’t get enough of it. It wasn’t even cologne. It was just him. His skin was as warm and soft as it looked. He let me get as close to him as I needed, and then he let me let go of him when I needed to.
He didn’t ask me what was wrong or if I was okay. He just walked with me in silence to my next class.
When I stopped in the doorway, he finally spoke, “I’ll wait for you.”
Cy had made it a point to remain aloof since we met, and now he was walking me to my classes. A part of me wanted to ask him more questions about why he had gone from one extreme to the other, but I was afraid if I did, it would make things awkward, and he would stop.
There was no use in pretending that I didn’t want or need him around more, so I nodded and went inside, relieved to know Cy would be there when class was over.
JUST A FEW DAYS BEFORE THANKSGIVING BREAK, the sidewalks were clustered with red-faced but otherwise chipper students and faculty, almost all of them holding a Styrofoam cup of steaming hot liquid. I didn’t drink coffee, tea, soda, or hot chocolate. If I drank anything but water, my throat would feel dry and raw. My father said that Mom must have passed that down to me because she was the same way until she turned forty, and then she tried her first glass of wine, and that became her new favorite beverage.
Christ, she was beautiful. Even her last day on this earth with mascara running down her face and a rag tied tightly across her mouth, she was the embodiment of beauty. When my father was happy, he would call her honey or dearest, and when he was angry, he would say Charlotte, but even then, her name sounded lovely. The night we all died, my father said her name in a tone I didn’t recognize. A warning. She remained calm until they began tying my wrists, but then she fought them in utter despair.
“Charlotte,” my father had said, “sit still, love. It will all be over soon. Just let them get what they came for, and we can go home.” He looked at me with calm eyes. “It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s going to be okay.”
That was when she looked at me for forgiveness. She was a ferocious mother bear, unleashing her wrath on anyone who dared mistreat me or disrespect me or made me feel anything less than the amazing being she thought I was. Watching the knots being tied around my wrists and then behind my head, the begging in my eyes, and the torture on my face when I had to watch them hurt my best friend, who I’d known and loved since I was three, killed her hours before she died.
“Rory?”
I was standing outside of Microphysics class, frozen.
“You look lost,” Benji said.
“Isn’t everyone?” I said, leaving him alone in the hallway.
Benji chuckled as I passed. “That’s deep, Rory. We feeling a little emo today? Hey…I’m just kidding…Rory?”
My boots stomped up the stairs to a desk, and my bag fell off my shoulder to the floor. Ice-cold fingers found their way to my chest to touch the stained hair that was no longer there. When I needed to remember her, I would reach for my hair, but I’d shaved it off so that I could forget.
Forget my mother. Who does that? Was it too much for me to keep the one tangible thing I had left of her? It wasn’t only my blood that had saturated my hair but hers, too. And I’d thrown it in the trash.
For the last three years, Thanksgiving had been difficult for me, and I could feel myself breaking down. It was going to be a rough day.
As the professor instructed straight from the physics textbook, I took unnecessary notes in the margins with shaky hands, not having a clue about what I was writing down on the pages. By the time class was dismissed, my anxiety was nearly intolerable.
Dr. Zorba’s office was in the building, so I pushed my way past the other students, focusing on the relief I might feel once I was sitting in his ugly and itchy orange chair. It was there when he’d been hired at Kempton thirty years before.
Without knocking, I pushed my way inside and sat in the chair, focusing on my breathing. In. Out. In. Out. In…out. In…out.
“Difficult morning?” Dr. Z said, not looking up from the paper he was scribbling on.
“I need her today.”
“I told you not to cut the hair.”
“Too late.”
Once I got a handle on my breathing, I noticed someone sitting in the swivel chair on the other side of Dr. Z’s desk. It startled and embarrassed me, and then that embarrassment flashed to anger.
“What are you doing in here?”
Cy didn’t answer. He just watched as my eyes darted between him and the professor.
“We had a meeting,” Dr. Z said.
“About the research?” I said. “Why wasn’t I called to this meeting?”
Dr. Z wasn’t fazed. “You’re worked up, Rory. Calm down, and then we’ll talk.”
“You didn’t know I was having a bad morning. That has nothing to do with my exclusion from a research meeting.”
“You’re assuming it was a research meeting,” the doctor said, his voice low and calm as always. “Remember, Cyrus is also my student. We do have other things to talk about.”
“It’s not Cyrus. It’s just Cy,” I said.
Both of them gave me a funny look.
“He’s the one who said it,” I said, motioning to Cy. I was surprised he hadn’t let the professor know that he preferred the shorter name.
Dr. Z just watched me, waiting for me to come to some sort of a conclusion.
“Okay,” I said, getting angrier by the minute. “Well, I guess I’d better excuse myself, so you can finish your meeting.”
“Sit,” Dr. Z said. “We were finished. We can talk about the research since you’re both here.”
I settled into my seat, satisfied with that suggestion.
Dr. Z continued, “I’ve determined that this project should be kept between us. All the data should be recorded and put into an encrypted file, and then all the paperwork should be shredded and taken to the incinerator.”
I lowered my chin, watching the professor speak. He had a stern look, one I hadn’t seen before. He wasn’t kidding.
“And we shouldn’t speak of it,” Cy added, “to anyone.”
“What am I missing?” I asked.
Dr. Z intertwined his fingers and rested his hands on his desk. “I’ve been receiving emails from a Dr. Fenton Tennison. He’s from a special division at the CIA, one of the heads of a committee of scientists, military leaders, and government officials. In some circles, this committee is known as Majestic Twelve. He’s…interested in the specimen.”
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